Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Republican Dilemma/Beat Hillary or Save the Party

The quote, "These are the times that try men's souls" by Founding Father Thomas Paine is certainly appropriate for the Republicans this presidential election. ALL the conservatives I know have been alarmed, baffled, frustrated, discouraged, angry, or bitter at some time during this campaign.

The biggest issue that seems to face conservatives is whether to try to elect someone who can beat Hillary or to support the best candidate even if Republicans lose in the general election. A form of civil war has been waged over this issue, with many close friends and staunch Republican supporters lining up on different sides of the issue and often with hurt and angry feelings toward their dear friends. I, like many others, have had this debate with myself, and with others, numerous times over the last few months.

Many conservatives are making their decisions out of desperation in order to prevent the worst nightmare of their lives: Hillary Clinton as President of the United States. But others argue that if we put a liberal Republican in the White House that it will destroy the Republican Party – that if we nominate a liberal as our candidate, we will lose the party just as the conservatives in the Democrat Party lost their party many years ago. Then there would be no one to fight for our issues.

There are good arguments on both sides, and I think this is the time that we should strive to understand each other more than any time I ever remember. I agree that Hillary Clinton will be the worst President we have ever had for the Christians and conservatives. But as someone has said, it took a Jimmy Carter to get a Ronald Reagan. It took Bill Clinton's Presidency for there to be a landslide victory for Republicans in Congress after his first couple years in office.

I think I am persuaded that it would be better for the conservatives to send a message to the leaders of the Party that we will not accept and vote for a liberal candidate even if Hillary Clinton becomes President. That may sound like heresy to many of you, but note what a liberal, socialist Republican did to the Republican Party in Arkansas. (See blue font below)

When Governor Huckabee pushed the many issues that were totally anti conservative, the Republicans in the legislature would not disagree with their own Party leader so there was no one left to fight against the liberal programs. When Republican legislators or other conservatives tried to bring light to the issue by criticizing it, they were ostracized for not being a team player or for hurting the party. This brought great division in the party. I saw this happen over and over during Governor Huckabee's governorship, and it has happened on the national level with President Bush as well. Had the governor been a Democrat, there would have been great opposition to many things that Huckabee pushed through with ease. Following are excerpts from a Washington Times article that describes just how badly the Republican Party in Arkansas fared under Huckabee.

The former Southern Baptist pastor-turned-politician took control of the governor's mansion in 1996 with expectations that he would lead the kind of Republican ascension in other states of the Deep South . . ."He destroyed it," said Randy Minton, a former state representative whom Mr. Huckabee worked to help get elected but who later clashed repeatedly with the governor. "We had one U.S. senator, we had two congressmen, at the tops we had 37 out of 135 legislators in the House and Senate. Now I think there's 32 in the legislature, we have no U.S. senators and we have one congressman."

"In the 10 years where the governor was the title head of the party, we actually took steps backwards," Mr. Files said, noting that Republicans were advancing in other Southern states. "The overall morale of the party did not take any of those same stages it did in the other states. It started plateauing and took a dive."

But when Mr. Huckabee sought surrogates to counter the opposition from Republicans in his state, fewer than half of the Republicans in the state legislature signed up.

By the end of his tenure, Mr. Huckabee was calling his Republican opponents the "Shi'ites" and they called him a "Christian socialist." They said no Republicans hold any of the statewide constitutional offices, and the state party chairman told the Associated Press last week that he doesn't expect to field a candidate this year to run against Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat.

2 Comments:

I noted that during the time Governor Huckabee was governor that he pushed through more government control, taxes, and United Nations education programs than Bill or Hillary could possibly have done. As scary as it is, why then should I be more afraid of Hillary Clinton in the White House than a liberal Republican? At least the Republicans and the conservative organizations will fight the socialism and government control if Hillary is President. If a Republican is president, they will just sit back and let it happen so as not to hurt the Party or their own credibility.

Hillary's choice of Supreme Court Justices is what I fear most if Hillary becomes President. I do think we landed two good ones under Bush; but if conservatives had not fought hard at the grass roots level, we would have lost the battle on one of those. As the justices stand now, any Justice to be replaced in the next few years is more than likely a liberal so all Hillary could do is replace one liberal with another one. If someone like McCain gets the nomination, he probably won't give us the Supreme Court justices we want anyway. McCain made the comment that he probably wouldn't appoint anyone like Scalia who wears their conservatism on their sleeves the way he does. We don't need any more liberal judges appointed by Republicans like David Souter that was confirmed under the first Bush president.

Long years ago I voted for Democrats. I think that party was lost by the Democrats accepting one candidate after another that did not support the conservative values. I believe the Republican Party is headed in the same direction unless we take a stand and make a statement that we will not support the liberal candidates. Isn't becoming like the Democratic Party just as scary or more so than another Clinton becoming President?

But if you decide Hillary is scarier, I will try very hard not to hold that against you and hope you will do the same for me.

This article can be found online at http://www.wpaag.org/republican_dilemma%20-%20beat%20Hillary%20or%20save%20the%20party.htm and on

Debbie Pelleydpelley@suddenlink.net

See this link for the entire article above: http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080124/NATION/8463148/1001 See this link for other articles on Huckabee that show the extent of his liberalism. http://www.wpaag.org/Huckabee%20-%20Conservative%20Hope%20-%20grassroots%20movement.htm